


Ties That Bind

by HSavinien



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-26
Updated: 2007-03-26
Packaged: 2017-11-28 07:59:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien/pseuds/HSavinien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connections matter.  A ribbon ties them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ties That Bind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [malicehaughton@livejournal.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=malicehaughton%40livejournal.com).



Somewhere in Africa, a dog pawed hungrily at red-stained dust, trying listlessly to lap up nourishment from the swiftly disappearing puddle. Red tossed her head, laughing at Sable’s sated expression. “It’s been too long since you took a personal interest. Even you need to see the way your work is appreciated.” The mockery in her voice sounded with echoes of Achilles’ scorn raking Agamemnon.

Sable smiled, thin and sharp as a knife. “My dear woman, we really must collaborate more often.” Pale fingers dangled the end of a black ribbon, slipping close enough to tie up a slender lock of flaming hair.

***

Adam frowned. Would it count as Interfering if someone else (or, rather two Someones) had started bollocksing things up first? No. He watched the ribbon curl like spreading ink and stretched just a little, smoothing the path of international aid organisations. Dog sighed, dribbling a little as his head flopped across Adam’s trainers.

"They’re doing their job, I suppose,” Pepper observed quietly over his shoulder, looking at the news feed on the telly.

“Yar, well. They can choose as well. You don’t have to hurt people just because you’re meant to.” He poked her in the shoulder. “Daft reason to do anything.”

“Do you get in trouble?”

He laughed. Dog’s hackles spiked and Pepper shivered involuntarily—there was something like humour and something like fear in that sound and it was far more beautiful than it had any right being coming out of a thirteen-year-old boy. “Who with, Pep? Who with?”

The girl buried the memories that tried to rise at that. Adam glanced back, contrite. “Sorry, Pep. Here, could you help me with somethin’?” At her nod, he produced a snarled tangle of black ribbon. “Help me unknot this?”

Pepper grinned, instantly comfortable now that the metaphysical had been abandoned. “Your mum got a craft project? Mine’s discovered macramé, and I can’t even figure out what it is she’s meant to be making.”

“Something like that, Pepper.”

***

Newt looked around guiltily, running the bit of black ribbon through his fingers. Anathema had bicycled down to Lower Tadfield, muttering about soybean prices and threatening to make him take her to London in Dick Turpin for a trip to the markets. She hadn’t said when she’d be back, but…it had been weeks now since he’d looked at it. It wasn’t as if it was really _wrong_ of him. All young men were interested in things like that, even if they did have a lovely, fulfilling life. It still made him feel slightly guilty though. It reminded him of, well, lying to Anathema. 

Leaning back against the headboard of the bed, Newt pulled the magazine out from under the mattress. They were so beautiful—surely Anathema would forgive him that if she ever found out. Propping one knee up for comfort, he opened the magazine, fingers catching as he trailed them across the glossy photographs. The ribbon coiled beside him on the rumpled duvet.

A sudden noise made him jump, tipping him off the bed and onto the floor. Looking up in dread, he saw Anathema, arms folded over the windowsill, grinning at him. “All right, lover-my-lad. Give it here.”

“Er.”

“Come on.” Beckoning imperiously, she Looked at him. There are looks and then there are Looks—which only a small percentage of the female and a _very_ small number of the male population can deliver with any kind of convincing emphasis. Anathema was the Mistress of the Look, possibly because of all the built up confidence of the professional-descendent-gone-freelance-mystic. 

Red-faced, Newt handed over the magazine as Anathema climbed in the window, straddling the sill as she studied it. “It’s…not exactly what it looks like…”

“‘Macintosh—Meet the New Apple!’” she read. Looking up, she quirked an eyebrow. “Still haven’t given up on the computers, have you.”

“I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually! Look, they’re American, designed to be user friendly, so they can’t be too difficult.” Risking a glance at his lover, Newt Pulsifer ventured, “I have apologized about the ‘computer technician’ bit, haven’t I?”

Anathema nodded absently. “Set on this, are you?”

“You mean…we might get one?” he asked, vaguely incredulous.

“I’ve been thinking about setting up an internet site,” she replied, paging past some software adverts. Anathema looked up and fixed him with a serious glare. “You’ll not be touching it without some training, though. I think if I can get your mind fixed on breaking a computer, you should be able to touch it safely.” At his poleaxed expression she smiled again. Dropping the magazine on the bed, she pulled him up from the floor and grabbed the black ribbon off the bed. She tied it carefully around his neck in a lopsided bow, then pushed Newt over onto the coverlet, landing on top of him. Grinning mischievously, Anathema added, “I can promise you’ll enjoy the lessons.”

***

Aziraphale could tell that Crowley was rapidly approaching the ‘casually destructive’ stage of boredom. Directly before that, however, came the— _kick…kick_ —ah, right on schedule. The ‘alleviate by annoying angel’ stage.

“Crowley, you do realize that you are being extremely childish?”

“Hmm?”

“I can see your foot, you know. You are kicking my _ankle_.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Crowley said with an injured sniff. His foot stilled though and he gazed out toward the pond, singeing a few feathers. The ducks in his sight line squawked indignantly and rushed at a quick waddle to quench their toasted feathers in the water.

“Did I tell you that some land developers are looking at St James’s?” the demon asked, tone too casual. “They’re turning it into a carpark.”

“No, they aren’t.”

“Well, you don’t know—there might’ve been.”

“No, there wouldn’t be.”

“How do you know?”

“I was present at the signing of the protective act that prevents any such thing happening to this park.” Aziraphale turned a page calmly, mouth twitching a little despite his efforts.

“Blessed bloody know-it-all.”

“Crowley, are you or are you not going to leave me in peace long enough to finish this book?”

Anthony J Crowley grinned, tinted glasses catching the sunlight. “Now that you mention it…”

The angel sighed, noting his page number and stowing the book away in his blazer pocket. “I should have known. Well, since my choice of recreation has apparently been vetted, did you have an alternative in mind?”

“We could go to a club!” Crowley said immediately, perking up.

“No. You just want to scandalise me by seducing someone inappropriate.”

Crowley pouted. He honestly pouted, Aziraphale observed out of the corner of his eye. The demon’s lower lip protruded and his brow had the tiniest wrinkle, just above the sunglasses.

“Crowley, _really_.”

“’s not fair,” he mumbled.

“What?” Aziraphale turned on the bench and looked at Crowley full on.

“I said, ‘It’s not fair.’ We’re always doing what you like, never what I like. Today we fed the dam- bles- bloody _ducks_ and you didn’t even let me pop any kiddie balloons.”

Aziraphale was beginning to be slightly unnerved. “This really isn’t like you, Crowley. We’re hardly…I don’t know… Er, I didn’t think you minded so terribly.”

“I wouldn’t, if I got to have some fun once in a while without you scowling at me.”

“But, but you do, don’t you? When I’m working at the bookshop, you have plenty of time for temptings and wiles and…things.”

Crowley heaved a long sigh, lower lip sticking out even more. Aziraphale was beginning to think he shouldn’t be paying so much attention to his friend’s lips. “It’s not the same. When we’re out together, having fun, the most I ever get to do is skip out on the check and you usually even thwart that. I saw you mucking with the Albanian agent’s mind earlier. Your lot and their bloody puppies and flowers…[1]”

“Er…well, I suppose you might have a point.”

Crowley brightened immediately. “You’ll go out with me then? I can teach you how to dance as if you’d learned within the last century.”

Aziraphale searched valiantly for an excuse that wouldn’t make Crowley pout again, as that was clearly bad for his—Aziraphale’s—train of thought. “Er…”

Crowley smiled, the corners of his mouth doing things to Aziraphale’s stomach that completely bypassed the brain altogether and made both ache rather. He jumped up and dangled a bit of black ribbon in front of the angel’s eyes. “Right, I’ll pick you up at eight, shall I? No tartan nor tweed allowed in the Bentley tonight. Ciao!” He sauntered off, radiating something that almost seemed like excitement. The ribbon floated down and coiled in Aziraphale’s lap.

 

Several hours later, at twenty-one minutes to eight, Aziraphale sat in his shop, finishing the book he’d been reading earlier that day. (Miss Sarton had a charming way with words, for an American.) He’d learned long ago that expecting a demon to arrive exactly when he’d said he would was an exercise in futility. Crowley might be late—to keep him waiting, or early—to catch him unready, but coming on time, well, that would smack too much of courtesy. Aziraphale ran the ribbon through his fingers, then peered down at it in mild bemusement. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing Crowley would carry around with him. It was…odd—

A car, the Bentley by its purr, slid up to the kerb beside the bookshop and Aziraphale looked up at the clock out of habit. Half a minute to eight. Crowley…punctual?

The demon breezed into the shop, disregarding the locked door and smiling in his most disconcerting fashion. He looked Aziraphale over critically, sighing a bit melodramatically. “Well, it’s better than it could be, but honestly, angel, do you expect me to voluntarily be seen in public with that jumper?”

Aziraphale bristled slightly. Granted, his black trousers were more conservatively cut than Crowley’s, which looked too tight to be either practical or comfortable…and rather too close-fitting to be donned by anyone who did not have the ability to turn into a snake at convenient moments. The jumper was practical too, a pleasant knitted pale green affair that an elderly woman in Brighton had made for “the nice young man” who’d helped her carry approximately 20 stone worth of trunks to her hotel one summer—he still got aches down his back when he thought about it and that had been one unfortunate discorporation ago. The sleeves might be raveling a bit around the cuffs but there was still plenty of good wear in it.

“Really,” his companion continued, “don’t you have a decent jacket around here somewhere? I know I gave you one last Easter for dinners and things, but you haven’t worn it to the Ritz, so— You haven’t given it away, have you?” he asked suspiciously. “I did not intend to make an involuntary contribution to one of those clothing charities.”

The angel, sighed, rubbing his temple. “If you’ll allow me to get a word in, my dear? No, I still have it, I just don’t wear it…often. It doesn’t suit me.”

Crowley looked wounded. “Are you calling my dress sense into question? I’ll have you know that jacket is a classic.   It’s been stylish for three years now. And it fits you perfectly.”

“It’s rather tight.”

“Not where we’re going. Off with you and fetch it.” His jaw was set stubbornly, eyebrows quirked in mock menace, and his deliberately casual lean against the counter implied that a. he could play the waiting game as well as anyone and b. Aziraphale owed him.

After a quick trot upstairs for the article of clothing in question—a sleek, close-cut black affair, Aziraphale followed Crowley out to the Bentley, trying to ignore his companion’s perkiness. Beside the fact that perkiness was disconcerting in any demon, he feared that he was being elaborately set up for something. The only problem was that he had no idea what.

 

Aziraphale stared down at his feet with an expression of vague horror. “My dear…my shoes are _sticking_ to the _floor_.”

Crowley laughed, body swaying to the beat of music that the angel mentally described as ‘raucous’ (and felt it an act of Charity to do so.) “It’s not your feet you should be worried about.”

“Pardon?” Aziraphale peered over at his friend as best as he could in the glare from the pulsing lights. Crowley had a very odd expression on his face. He seemed to be alternating between a smirk and something else that might have been nerves.

“Do you want some Truth, angel? They’re always been big on that Upstairs.”

“Erm, about what? I can assure you—”

“Nonono, nothing about work; I shouldn’t have said it like that. Something about you.”

“Crowley, how much alcohol have you had tonight?”

He snorted, draping his arm around Aziraphale’s shoulders, ostensibly to lead him into a quieter corner of the punk dance club, through the crowd of gyrating young humans. Once away from the dance floor, though, he neglected to remove the limb, dragging the angel’s head closer to his own. “The truth is that you were right, blessed know-it-all that you are.”

“Of course,” Aziraphale responded automatically. “About what am I right in this particular instance? The fact that you have neglected to sober up in some time?”

“Nope. Guess again.” The demon grinned, teeth glinting sharp in the lights.

“Crowley…”  
  
“Fine.” He puffed out a breath of air in mock exasperation. “You were right about my plans for the night.”

Aziraphale cast his mind back, trying to remember what— “Crowley! I’m not going to stand by and let you corrupt some poor human…”

“Nope, wrong again.”

“What?” The angel shook his head, nonplussed.

“Scandalise you by seducing someone inappropriate, remember?”

Aziraphale blinked, trying to parse his meaning.

“Well, I _hope_ I’m succeeding,” Crowley purred, leaning a few inches closer. “Hmm…” Then, shrugging, he tipped his head the last few inches and kissed the angel.

A moment of intense, rigid shock later, Aziraphale’s shoulders relaxed infinitesimally and he returned the kiss.

Pulling away, Crowley pouted. “So, not scandalous, then?”

“If it makes you feel any better, it’s certainly inappropriate,” Aziraphale replied a little breathlessly, before leaning back towards him to taste the pout he’d tried to ignore that afternoon.

“Well, I’m not planning on issuing a relationship bulletin to Heaven or Hell,” the demon said after they negotiated their way through that kiss. My, but collaboration was interesting.

“As long as we understand one another,” Aziraphale said sternly. He set Crowley solidly upright—they’d managed to drift into a mutual lean against the wall. Pulling the black ribbon from his coat pocket, he knotted it carefully around Crowley’s wrist.

“Do we?” he asked, brushing one hand down the angel’s jaw. “I think it’s simple. We’ve only been edging towards it for the last hundred years.”

“As do I, but let me put it into words for my own sake, my dear. If I’m yours, then you’re mine. In this case, I think tha—”

“No one else.”

“Precisely. Shall we go get a real drink and leave this din?”

“It’s perfectly good music…well, maybe not this band. Yes, all right.”

 

* * *

 

[1] The government spy in question had rather suddenly decided to devote his life to running a shelter for abandoned animals of all varieties and completely forgotten the clandestine meeting he was supposed to be having with a French double agent.


End file.
